New GOP sequester plan: Let Obama decide what to cut

posted at 4:01 pm on February 21, 2013 by Allahpundit

It’s headed straight down the toilet in the Senate but not half-bad as a PR ploy designed to show the party’s reasonableness on cuts. GOP problem: Obama keeps complaining that the sequester is a blunt instrument that’ll impose all sorts of hardships because it cuts spending indiscriminately, across the board. What we need are more targeted cuts aimed at agencies that are better prepared to cope with them. GOP solution: Let Obama and his agency chiefs pick the targets then. When people start complaining that they’ve been furloughed or that they have to wait in line at the airport for 11 hours or whatever, they can thank the Lightbringer for slashing their budget.

One question. When was the last time a Republican PR ploy really worked, especially during a budget death match? This one might matter for half a day, until Reid kills it to protect Obama and Democrats lead the media back towards the evergreen “what about new revenues?” talking point.

The irony is that in the near term, the GOP’s proposed fix would delegate a great deal of authority to the executive branch — and thus to President Obama. And for the GOP that would come with the risk that the administration would target the cuts at GOP constituencies, which would undermine the political rationale for their own plan.

But aside from that potential flaw it’s a clever idea. In effect, it’s a sequester replacement bill minus the political cost of proposing specific alternative cuts to federal programs. It would set a new, lower baseline for spending at the executive departments, including defense, and leave it to bureaucrats, or future congressional leaders, to determine which programs are high priority and which are not. It would still constitute significant austerity — $85 billion in cuts over the next several months — but would lead to a substantively better outcome than if President Obama were forced to order the sequester in its current form…

Senate Democrats expect Republicans to offer up a plan like this as an alternative to their own sequester replacement bill, and are poised to vote it down, according to a senior Democratic aide.

A Senate source tells the Examiner that the GOP leadership is discussing this idea seriously; a House source tells them that they’re really not keen on handing O the authority to start cutting whatever he wants. Either way, this is basically just Pat Toomey’s idea of authorizing Treasury to prioritize payments in case we hit the debt ceiling, except applied to a different budgetary context. That was also an attempt to soften public opinion towards the GOP for supporting a sudden halt to spending. Here’s the baseline we’re starting from now on the sequester, per Pew:

In the same poll, 76 percent say they support the so-called “balanced” approach of cuts plus new revenues versus just 19 percent who support cuts alone. (Does the new revenue raised by the tax hikes that took effect just last month count? I know what O would say.) Guy Benson looks at the data and at Obama’s machinations and despairs:

This is a great gig, if you can get it. You conceive of a bad idea, demand that it be given the force of law, sign it into existence, and adamantly oppose efforts to alter or undo it — then when it no longer serves your fleeting political purposes, you drop the whole thing in the lap of your adversaries, and most people buy it. Let’s face it: Average people don’t know what sequestration is, what it would do, or why it even exists. If they were briefed on the very basics, these numbers would probably shift a bit, but most Americans have no appetite for following Washington’s endless political brinksmanship. So what do they do when a pollster calls to ask about the latest impending crisis? They use shortcuts. Although he’s not especially popular, the president is viewed much more favorably than Republicans in Congress these days. Between this reality and the supine posture of his battered-spouse media supporters, Obama occupies the public opinion high ground in most of these battles, even before he begins his tendentious bullying. On broad and intuitive issues like guns and Obamacare, his powers of persuasion are limited. But on easily-demagogueable budget minutiae with baffling names like “sequestration,” a lot of people don’t quite understand what’s going, nor do they really want to know. So they pick the guy they like better.

Yeah, but it’s not just the popularity contest that’s driving this. For better or worse, since 2009, the GOP’s brand has been built on the idea of cutting spending. It’s the core concern of the tea partiers who swept them to power in the House in 2010. Whenever we reach a budget crisis and the left’s/media’s doomsaying about cuts begins, it’s inevitable that the party that champions cuts will be blamed for that crisis. Plus, there’s historical baggage — the tea party’s polling took a hit after the debt-ceiling standoff in 2011 and even some low-information voters remember Newt’s shutdown in the 90s. When voters hear that something “draconian” is about to be done in the name of reducing spending, their thoughts gravitate to precedents like that and it informs their view of the present situation. Bobby Jindal, in particular, has been almost frantic in trying to get the party to shift its emphasis from cuts to economic growth, partly for this very reason. If you’re going to plant your flag on reducing spending, especially mandatory spending, in the name of fiscal sustainability, you need to be confident that the public is prepared to sacrifice in order to achieve that. What evidence is there that they are?

I’ll leave you with this, just to give you a sense of how likely it is that this GOP PR maneuver will work. It’s not a parody; this image really is fronting WaPo’s website as I write this.

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Comments

“Fewer animals on display. . ..” Big deal. Fewer animals caged up to satisfy the curiosity of little Muffie and Sam. Not the biggest worry we have here. Besides, it’s all bluff and bluster anyway. Nothing is really getting cut but the rate of increase in spending, for Pete’s sake.

If you’re going to plant your flag on reducing spending, especially mandatory spending, in the name of fiscal sustainability, you need to be confident that the public is prepared to sacrifice in order to achieve that. What evidence is there that they are?

FYI: The Repub-controlled House has ALREADY PASSED TWO BILLS that take a targeted approached to cutting OBOZO regime spending (aka, WASTE). Naturally, dingy-harry killed both before the Senate could even look at them.

As detailed brilliantly in editorials in The Wall Street Journal, the total amount of “cuts” from the Sequester are as insignificant as a tiny pimple on Mooch’s humongous butt. Nobody with a brain should give a nanosecond’s thought to the Sequester. The ONLY reason the lunatic-left is squawking is because to them even ONE PENNY cut from their out-of-control, destructive, massive spending extravaganza is unacceptable. Sane people have a different view. However, the mass ignorati that votes (multiple times) for their own destruction haven’t the brain-power to digest the meaningful facts of this matter. Yes, all is lost for America. Accept it.

$850 future cuts on a $35,000 a year budget..boil it down to simple numbers and give the script to Newt who can share it with Diane, Scott and Brian and close with “Do you really think (news anchor) that is something you could handle if it was your budget?”….end with Newt sneering..

I say give O whatever he wants. The low info voters will continue to support him because they have not been hurt (that they are aware of) by his policies. Give Obama what he wants. Let the system collapse so we can get to the rebirth and rebuilding.

Although he’s not especially popular, the president is viewed much more favorably than Republicans in Congress these days. Between this reality and the supine posture of his battered-spouse media supporters, Obama occupies the public opinion high ground in most of these battles, even before he begins his tendentious bullying.

And there it is, neatly wrapped and tied with a great, big, shiny bow: the brainwashed masses. The people who draw government checks, whether Social Security, SSI, welfare or actual government employees. The people sitting in their well-appointed McMansions who really, really think that Ogabe and the Dems are so much nicer than those mean-spirited Republicans who want nothing more than to snatch the bread out of the poor childrens’ mouths in order to enrich their big donors. The people who really, really believe that continued government spending will end poverty.

And it’s not just the media that sports battered spouse syndrome; the GOP establishment does, too. The RINOs live in absolute terror that the left-wing LSM will call them “meanies”. They honestly believe that if they are just nice enough, placating enough, supine enough, the LSM will pat them on the back. What a bunch of idionts.

All joking aside, I wonder if anybody in the media would be upset if Obama required all news articles and newscasts to be observed and approved by a government agency. What would it take for them to question ANYTHING he does?

Has anyone ever noticed how budget cutting, whether on the municipal, the state or the national level, is always framed by the government entity involved as cutting services? Fewer police and firemen. Fewer teachers. Fewer animals at the zoo. Fewer air traffic controllers. No one ever says that redecorating their office will have to wait another year or that their brother-in-laws $60,000 consulting job will have to go or that one or two departments will have to do with one less administrator.

Yes its always the case and the media never call out the idjits who spew forth such nonsense.

Line item rationale exercise: does your job/duty/service provide tangible value to the taxpayers?
Can the same been done cheaper without interrupting the perceived value to the taxpayer?
Is your service/duty/function duplicated elsewhere and if so, who does it better & cheaper?

Those three criteria would cut govt spending by over 50% in most cases (excluding entitlement spending).

The people who draw government checks, whether Social Security, SSI, welfare or actual government employees. The people sitting in their well-appointed McMansions who really, really think that Ogabe and the Dems are so much nicer than those mean-spirited Republicans who want nothing more than to snatch the bread out of the poor childrens’ mouths in order to enrich their big donors.

Please! This broad swipe is not any better than what the idiots in the WH puts out.
You are insulting the generation that saved your butt w/o an ounce of proof of what you say.

Comparing Social Security to welfare is asanine! I will soon be joining that group and definitely don’t feel that way and I suspect the patriots that served in WWII and other wars don’t, either!

The networks rarely represent the GOP point of view, and/or otherwise focus on extraneous matters without any of the connecting dots.

The other problem w GOP messaging is that members do not pound home the same message for two reasons: first, they believe, perhaps justifiably, that no one will air anything they say unless it’s “different”; and further, their egos insist on being free agents, they cannot handle the idea of messaging as a team sport.

Seen as a whole, however, the GOP is more sinned against than sinning, at least relative to the MSM.

So, even with the MSM stacked against us, what do AP and other hand-wringers want us to do? Forfeit now?

If the GOP rolls over on the sequester, they WILL lose the House in 2014, and most members will be primaried, as well.

The other problem w GOP messaging is that members do not pound home the same message for two reasons: first, they believe, perhaps justifiably, that no one will air anything they say unless it’s “different”; and further, their egos insist on being free agents, they cannot handle the idea of messaging as a team sport.

Sarah Palin managed it and so did Newt Gingrich. I suspect that their lack of faith in what they are saying has as much to do with their silence as anything else.

Seen as a whole, however, the GOP is more sinned against than sinning, at least relative to the MSM.

matthew8787 on February 21, 2013 at 5:01 PM

If you just sit there and let yourself be a punching bag my sympathy for you starts to vanish. You become part of the problem.

Comparing Social Security to welfare is asanine! I will soon be joining that group and definitely don’t feel that way and I suspect the patriots that served in WWII and other wars don’t, either!

avagreen on February 21, 2013 at 4:58 PM

You will take out far more than you ever put in. Your retirement will be supported by future workers. What is that? The federal government has no business running a retirement fund no matter how you frame it. That is not what the federal government is for.

The RINOs live in absolute terror that the left-wing LSM will call them “meanies”. They honestly believe that if they are just nice enough, placating enough, supine enough, the LSM will pat them on the back. What a bunch of idionts.

catsandbooks on February 21, 2013 at 4:24 PM

I used to think this but no more.

Far to many RINOs have actually become Democrats. Specter being one of the most famous ones. RINOs in Nevada had no problem endorsing Harry Reid.

I now wonder if RINOs are really just Democrats who felt the R gave them a better chance of obtaining office. GW Bush and Chenny signed the Defense of Marriage act but now both support Gay Marriage did they ever actually support DOM? Did they actually support smaller Government of course not. Name me a GOP principal they actually support now.

Comparing Social Security to welfare is asanine! I will soon be joining that group and definitely don’t feel that way and I suspect the patriots that served in WWII and other wars don’t, either!

avagreen on February 21, 2013 at 4:58 PM

Yes…all SS recipients a war heroes, so let’s keep another flawed system afloat indefinitely. Every failed and failing spending program gets tied to teachers, cops, firefighters and the war heroes of the greatest generation. It won’t end until the system collapses.

You will take out far more than you ever put in. Your retirement will be supported by future workers. What is that? The federal government has no business running a retirement fund no matter how you frame it. That is not what the federal government is for.

tdarrington on February 21, 2013 at 5:22 PM

I agree.

I will retire in a few years but I will understand that the benefits from the Government are by definition Welfare. They are paid by taking money from workers to write me a check or my doctor. This is done at the point of a gun. Welfare is just legalized robbery.

The fact that the Government took my money to pay Retirement to others makes no difference. It was always called Payroll Tax.

What is the party apparatus going to do about it? Run on big government progressive ideas and promises to get elected, but govern as a small government libertarian. People don’t pay attention to what you do in office, just what you promise on the stump. It is the lesson RINOs learned a long time ago. Conservative on tv, progressive in the chamber. Just reverse it in blue districts.

The idea this will be disastrous is so ridiculous it hurts. And the people still blame the GOP. Now when polls come they say the biggest problem the nation has is deficits and debt. When someone does a VERY SMALL effort to curb spending and deficits and debt, they get clobbered by the media, who does not do their homework to explain exactly what the sequester is and what the spending issues are. Ask anyone on the streets how much the federal government spends every year. You will see what I am talking about.

People don’t pay attention to what you do in office, just what you promise on the stump. It is the lesson RINOs learned a long time ago. Conservative on tv, progressive in the chamber. Just reverse it in blue districts.

tdarrington on February 21, 2013 at 5:38 PM

You mean Stupid Party does not pay attention.

The DNC sure does. Just ask Joe Liberman (I). The DNC has primaried even their most popular members for not staying in line. They had kicked out dozens this way they booted every single Blue Dog.

Why does almost every article I read about this topic neglect
to mention that this little 2% reduction is NOT 2% of what
the current spending is, but is, however, a 2% reduction in the
growth of future spending spread out over ten years I believe?

Also, they just raised the payroll taxes back up which is also
around 2%, so the two should just cancel one another out.

However, Obama spent 6 trillion more in his first term and is,
of course, on his way to spend probably another 6 trillion.
That 2% probably means a lot to him.

In the same poll, 76 percent say they support the so-called “balanced” approach of cuts plus new revenues versus just 19 percent who support cuts alone.

LOL, hell, if you polled ONLY Democrats you’d get more people responding that support cuts alone – wtf?

Can we please simply not discuss polls anymore – like 99% of the media (and HA’s leaning that way more every day), they are nothing but adjuncts to the MSM, which is unashamedly and full-throatedly in the Obama camp. It’s all – all – engineered to produce whatever the libtards want them to produce. Nothing more.

And there it is, neatly wrapped and tied with a great, big, shiny bow: the brainwashed masses.
The people who draw government checks, whether Social Security, SSI, welfare or actual government employees. The people sitting in their well-appointed McMansions who really, really think that Ogabe and the Dems are so much nicer than those mean-spirited Republicans who want nothing more than to snatch the bread out of the poor childrens’ mouths in order to enrich their big donors. The people who really, really believe that continued government spending will end poverty.
catsandbooks on February 21, 2013 at 4:24 PM

My response:

Please! This broad swipe is not any better than what the idiots in the WH puts out.
You are insulting the generation that saved your butt w/o an ounce of proof of what you say.

Comparing Social Security to welfare is asanine! I will soon be joining that group and definitely don’t feel that way and I suspect the patriots that served in WWII and other wars don’t, either!

avagreen on February 21, 2013 at 4:58 PM

And, I used to be a government employee and didn’t feel that way. Sheesh!

avagreen on February 21, 2013 at 5:00 PM

Your responsse:

Yes…all SS recipients a war heroes, so let’s keep another flawed system afloat indefinitely. Every failed and failing spending program gets tied to teachers, cops, firefighters and the war heroes of the greatest generation. It won’t end until the system collapses.
tdarrington on February 21, 2013 at 5:26 PM

Please try to keep on subject.

I wasn’t referencing keeping any program alive indefintely…………Read again what I was saying….the calling people on Social Security and those that work for the government as being “brain washed”. I’m not brain washed and I doubt the generation above is, either. That’s what I was referencing.

The system is broken…..something has to be done for future generations. I came nowhere close to saying what you alledged.

Don’t try to read something that I didn’t say into something that you can wrongly rant about.

You will take out far more than you ever put in. Your retirement will be supported by future workers. What is that? The federal government has no business running a retirement fund no matter how you frame it. That is not what the federal government is for.

tdarrington on February 21, 2013 at 5:22 PM

It’s called being stuck in program w/o any choice to not participate and now we’re here.

Shall I and my group just….suicide ourselves? Would that make you any happier?

I can see Obama’s class warfare is alive and well. You’ve fallen for it hook/line and sinker.

Tell me what to do……….suggestions welcomed. Shall I refuse to take the check?

Tell me what to do……….suggestions welcomed. Shall I refuse to take the check?

The real question that you should be asking yourself is what are you going to do when that check stops coming in the mail? Or when inflation makes it utterly worthless? Because with the current course this nation is on, one of those scenarios is a 100% certainty.

The point that tdarrington and others are trying to make to you and those like you is this: the laws of economics cannot be legislated away. Something that cannot go on, will not go on. Those checks are going to stop coming, one way or the other. The choice is between whether or not the stopping is extremely painful or apocalyptic.

The real question that you should be asking yourself is what are you going to do when that check stops coming in the mail? Or when inflation makes it utterly worthless? Because with the current course this nation is on, one of those scenarios is a 100% certainty.

The point that tdarrington and others are trying to make to you and those like you is this: the laws of economics cannot be legislated away. Something that cannot go on, will not go on. Those checks are going to stop coming, one way or the other. The choice is between whether or not the stopping is extremely painful or apocalyptic.

rvastar on February 21, 2013 at 7:31 PM

You speak as if I’m unaware of the future. Did you not read my comments about something needs to be done? Or, do you just want to continue the rant?

Of course, you consider me a “parasite”……as you must every other person in my age group, including your parents, I’m sure. What a *sad* way to live your life.
What’s your solution, oh wise one….for us “parasites”?

Heh! It’s you, sweets. I know very well, as will everyone else reading this post. I despair for honesty these days. Where has it gone?

You’re doing quite well. Please don’t align yourself with the haters on this site or any other. Enjoy what you’ve got……I was there once. And, that little child I saw on another video of yours was like one of the four that I raised and then supported as they got into young adulthood…..college, rent during unemployment years, clothes, food…..you get the picture.

I’d probably be richer by far at this point if I hadn’t, but they were my children.

Luckily though – as is the case with all parasitic organisms in Nature when they become too much of a burden for the host body that they feed off of to support – you will eventually self-correct.

Tick…tock…tick…tock…

rvastar on February 21, 2013 at 8:06 PM

Gawd! You poor, poor fool.
What a hater. What a miserable person.
.
.

“Parasites” like me? LOL! You have no idea of who/what I am. I’m just another one of your targets to unload your bitterness on.

You’re almost out of touch with reality.

I’ve read your comments on other sites….perfect place for you to spew forth your acrimonious vitriol. You hate everyone but yourself, it seems. You’ve now spread your all encompassing self-hating misery from the “Left” to people on this site…..(conservatives and all)….all victims of your nastiness of spirit.

Apparently, even your own parents. Blind, deaf, and ignorant. Let me add: “Selfish”………probably in your 30’s and the product of a very unhappy home as evident from your biliousness. Kept your nose in books because of an inability to make/keep friends.

You remind me of the population in Soylent Green. Remember, guy, you’re going to live in the future you are creating with your hate…….if you don’t die of a heart attack before age 50 from all the bile you stir up.

FYI: This “parasite” put myself through college after my children were grown, obtained my Master’s in Social Work in 4 years instead of the usual 6, graduating Magna Cum Laude (bachelors), and in the top 1% of my master’s program in social work.

I worked the majority of my 20+ years in non-profits “earning” my millions and boatloads of money (joke), but that’s where the people were that needed the most help. My most favorite client were schizophrenics…..they tried so hard to simplest things that we (w/o that disease) take for granted.
My latest job: Rape Crisis Counselor. (More lavish salary.) Somewhere in my past even probably tried to help some depressed, degenerate anti-socials such as yourself filled with bitterness and loneliness.

I’ve helped more than a few as teens while working at my first job as a chemical dependency counselor for teens(the first master’s level CD counselor in Texas in 1989). Some of those few looked me up in another town 100 miles away as adults to come thank me and to help them with their adult problems/marriages, some referred their family to me. I’ve had more experiences that I won’t cheapen by writing about them.

I’ve met you. Over and over. Tis not I that’s the “parasite” here, good sir. You display your sickness for all to see. Look up “projection”.

The political code if I might be so bold is as good as gold. Google (list of federal agencies) and read them from A – Z and they are nothing but federal entitlements like the Carter Department of Energy over thirty years ago to get us off foreign oil. That bureaucracy now has 16,000 federal employees with a budget of 24 billion dollars that has failed for over thirty years of doing the job they were hired to do. The DOE produces nothing that’s taxable but the paychecks collected for over thirty years. Look over that listing and you’ll see agencies you never hear about stuffed with friends and family of politicians, it’s an incredible waste.